1. Learn to Communicate: Learning to verbalize what you are doing and why to family members and close friends, will help them feel more secure with you. Don’t assume they will just know. They won’t. Also, if you need help with something, suggest a way your family can help you out. They can’t read your mind. You must communicate your needs if you want to begin to trust people will be there for you.

2. Actions: Your actions do speak louder than words. If your actions do not match your words over time, people will not trust you. Nothing is more important to building trust than to have your actions match your words.

3. Keep no records of wrongs; If you want people to begin to open up to you and trust you, don’t keep reminding them of what they did wrong.
Focus on what is happening in your lives now. Sometimes one of the reason’s the past is brought up, is because there wasn’t proper closure to the hurt
or injury that took place in the past, in that case, you have to work toward closure to properly heal from the past injury.

4. Look in the mirror; Do people have a reason to distrust you? Do you speak about your close friends and family in unflattering ways? Do you regularly let them down? Do you make commitments to do things with them and then not follow through? Are you quick to anger? Easily offended? It’s hard to feel safe and comfortable with people who do these things. If you have behaved in an untrustworthy way, there is no better time than the present to ask for forgiveness and make a commitment to do better. And then do better. If you can’t do better on your own, get help.

5. Show trust; Most people are actually trustworthy in most matters most of the time. It just takes a few hurtful early experiences in life to make people not trust anyone, but just know you have to keep trying. People will often times rise to the occasion if you show you trust them. I am not talking about blind trust, that is called enabling. Enabling is also called having all grace and no truth. We all need both, grace for our imperfections and truth about how our actions may have hurt someone.

6. Confusion; Pay attention to the emotion of confusion. The emotion of confusion can be your friend. If you feel it regularly with someone, chances are the person you are interacting with might not be trustworthy, and they might be self-centered. People who follow through, do what they say they are going to do, and love you with their actions and words. They will naturally make you feel secure with them, not confused. So recognize when you are feeling regularly confused with someone. This is a red flag.

*If you are interacting with someone from a different culture, then this pointer might not count.

7. Repetition; Sometimes trust can only be re-built over time. And each time you behave in a trustworthy way, you earn more trust. In short follow through, communicate, take a look at yourself in terms of trust, and do what you say you will do, be sincere, show up, and keep building trust. Build trust in every matter, big or small, significant or not, you can’t go wrong, by being someone who can be counted on and trusted. Close friendships and love relationships are built on trust!